Photo Friday: Wind Power

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Thank goodness its Friday! On Fridays I will post a photo from the ranch and discuss the subject. Take a gander and see if you can guess what we are looking at…

Montana Wind Farm: Photo Courtesy of Katy Jane Angwin

Nope, they’re not your modern day wind mills. Actually quite diferent from wind mills used as early as the late 1800s in places like the XIT Ranch of Texas to draw underground water for livestock. These modern day wind turbines are found in wind farms across the globe, generating 2% of the electricity in the U.S. today.

On the drive through Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico last week these things dotted the horizon. While I lived in Dalhart last year I remember looking out at the night sky (more like morning on my way to work at 3 AM some days) and watching the blinking lights off in the distance from these towers. They are pretty majestic to watch and quite the distaction along I-40. If ole Boone Pickens has anything to do about it, we’ll being seeing more of these in the near future.

Wind Turbine Facts

The U.S. has capacity to generate more than 35,000 MW of energy from wind turbines and leads the world in wind power

In 2008 wind power accounted for 42% of U.S. new power-producing capacity

Wind power in the U.S. provides enough electricity to power the equivalent of nearly 9 million homes, avoiding the emissions of 57 million tons of carbon each year

The world’s largest wind farm is located in Texas

The microclimate created by wind farms is actually beneficial to crop production

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Published by Ryan Goodman

Ryan Goodman lives in Colorado, is an avid trail and ultrarunner, and works with farmers and ranchers to help them share their stories of agriculture and how food is raised. Connect with Ryan online as @BeefRunner. #TeamBeef.
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3 Comments

We live smack in the middle of the first turbine project in Indiana, and I am a big fan. The initial building is a bit of a pain due to road deterioration, and soil compaction from very large equipment going back and forth on your fields, but in the end, we have nice, wider roads, a handy lane down the middle of most fields to park the semis during harvest, and we are helping future generations with this issue of energy. Here is a link to one of my posts about the windmills .

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